Anthropometric measurements and prevalence of underweight, overweight and obesity in adult Malawians: nationwide population based NCD STEPS survey

Introduction: Overweight and obesity are significant causes of increased morbidity and premature mortality from non-communicable diseases, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, although local high quality population-based data to inform policies and strategies are lacking. Methods: Using the WHO STEPwise approach to chronic disease risk factor surveillance, population-based nationwide survey was conducted on participants aged 25-64 years in Malawi. A multi-stage cluster sample design and weighting were used to produce a national representative data for that age range.Results: A total of 4845 participants (65.7% females, 87.6% from rural  areas) had complete anthropometric data and included in this analysis.Overall (both sexes) population-based mean body weight, height, systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, blood glucose and cholesterol were estimated at 58.7 kg, 159.9 cm, 133.4 mmHg, 79.5 mmHg, 4.3 mmol/L, 4.4 mmol/L respectively. Prevalence of underweight, overweight, obesity, overweight and/ or obesity and central adiposity were 6.5%, 17.3%, 4.6%, 21.9% and 28.8% respectively. Overweight, obesity, overweight and/ or obesity and central adiposity were more frequent in females than males (20.7% vs 14.1%, 7.4% vs 2.0%, 28.1% vs 16.1% and 52.8% vs 5.6%), in urban than rural areas (23.2% vs 16.6%, 12.0% vs 3.7%, 35.2% vs 20.2%) respectively. Conclusion: This study demonstrated that overweight and/ or obesity is the major public health problem affecting at least one in five adults in Malawi. The problem is more frequent in females than males and urban than rural. Implementation of primary health care approaches such as WHO package for essential non-communicable diseases could reduce the problem.Key words: Anthropometric measurements, overweight, obesity, sub-Saharan Africa, Malaw

Prevalence of group b Streptococcus colonization in antenatal women at the Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital, Blantyre – a preliminary study

97 antenatal clinic attendees were recruited in a study aimed to determine the prevalence of group B streptococcus (Streptococcus agalactiae) among pregnant women at the Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital, Blantyre. Participants were interviewed using a standard questionnaire to gather demographic and other relevant information such as history of current pregnancy, antibiotic use within the last two weeks, previous miscarriages and stillbirths. Two specimens (low vaginal and rectal swabs) were taken per participant and processed using standard bacteriological methods. Age range of the participants was 19 to 37 years with a mean of 27.3 (SD 5.68) while parity ranged from 0 to 6 (mean of 3.1). All but 2 of the women were married; 95% had some form of education and 36.1% had previously had bad pregnancy outcomes. Specimen analysis showed that sixteen (16.5%) of the participants were GBS positive yielding a total of 27 isolates all of which were sensitive to penicillin G and erythromycin. Of those with GBS, 7 (44%) reported being HIV positive, 5 (31%) negative, while 4 refused to disclose their HIV serostatus.14 (87.5%) of the 16 GBS-positive women had had bad pregnancy outcomes prior to the present study and while colonization appeared to decrease with age, it increased with the number of previous bad pregnancy outcomes (p

Relação entre qualidade e liberação de N por plantas do semiárido usadas como adubo verde Relationship between biomass quality and N mineralization in plant species used as green manure in semi-arid Brazil

O uso de plantas como adubo verde pode ser uma alternativa para melhorar a fertilidade do solo porém a liberação de nutrientes desses adubos para o solo irá depender dos teores de lignina, polifenóis (PP) e N no material vegetal utilizado. Tais teores foram determinados em 24 espécies vegetais encontradas em propriedades rurais do semiárido e relacionados com a mineralização de N, quando incorporados ao solo. Os materiais apresentaram grande variação nos teores os quais, por sua vez, sinalizaram baixa correlação com as proporções do N mineralizado depois da incorporação. Utilizando os teores e suas relações, realizou-se análise de componentes principais agrupando os materiais de acordo com suas similaridades, visando verificar a existência de relações entre a formação dos grupos referidos e o N mineralizado após incubação dos materiais orgânicos. Quatro grupos foram formados; no entanto, pouca informação útil foi gerada no sentido de tentar predizer a mineralização de N com base na qualidade dos materiais testados. O comportamento da lignina não foi bem definido na formação dos grupos e não apresentou relação clara com a mineralização do N devido, talvez, ao curto prazo de avaliação da metodologia adotada (28 dias). Todos os materiais que apresentaram relação PP/N menor que 0,5, mineralizaram N enquanto que os apresentaram a mesma relação acima de 5, imobilizaram N.<br>The use of plants as green manure may be an alternative to improve soil fertility in the region, but the release of nutrients to the soil will depend on the concentrations of lignin, polyphenols (PP), and nitrogen of the green manures used. These variables were analyzed for 24 plant species commonly found in farms of the semi-arid region of NE Brazil, and the relationship between plant biomass quality and N release after incorporation into the soil was evaluated. There was a large variation in the concentration of lignin, PP and N of the green manures tested but these variables presented a low correlation with N mineralization after incorporation to the soil. In order to try to identify patterns among the different manures regarding quality and N release, these were grouped using Principal Component Analysis techniques, but very little meaningful patterns were observed to help predict N release based on the quality of the materials. The lignin content of the materials played an important role to form different groups, but may be the short time of the incubations (28 days) did not allow for the development of the correlation between lignin content and N release. In general, it was observed that all materials that presented a PP/N ratio lower than 0.5 mineralized N, while those that presented values of this ratio above 5 caused N immobilization